Riley unscrewed the box casing that concealed the water pipes in the kitchen. Nancy stood behind him waiting for the news.
‘Not there,’ he said.
‘But he can’t get out,’ moaned Nancy ‘You said so yourself.’ Riley replaced the casing, thinking he shouldn’t have said that, because she’d latched on to it. He’d only expected a ten-minute look-around. But Nancy was ready to dismantle the building. She’d already made him check the washing machine, the dryer and the fridge. She wouldn’t give up. That glow of expectation in her cheeks was like the fog lights at Lawton’s.
‘I’ll check the bedroom.’ Her voice was tight with the strain. ‘This is a waste of time,’ he said, thinking of the dark around Limehouse Cut.
Nancy got down on all fours, one cheek flat on the carpet. Riley stood behind her, looking down. Her fastidious concentration was ridiculous to him.
‘Where are you, Arnold?’ whispered Nancy.
Riley knelt beside her, as if to drink from a stream. ‘Not there,’ he said. These were bitter waters. He tasted one thing, and she another. His stomach turned, like it did in his dream.
This charade was played out in every room until they returned to the kitchen and faced the empty cage. All at once Nancy slumped into a chair, pushing a hand through her hair, one elbow on the table. ‘He’s so small, and so weak.’
The phrase threw up the days when Riley wore shorts. He’d been a small lad. Everything was heavy, even the shopping. He’d hated his weakness. Coming round, he noticed that Nancy’s shoulders were shaking. She’s laughing, he thought, with relief, and it brought a nervous giggle out of him. Like a thing on a ratchet-wheel, Nancy slowly looked up, and showed her tears.
‘How could you?’ she whispered in disbelief.
Riley paled, thinking that she’d known all along; that she’d led him round the houses, giving him the chance to admit what he’d done. He panicked and sniggered again.
‘Go on, laugh,’ she howled, proud and defiant. ‘Join the rest of them who think that Nancy Riley’s such a joke.’ She hid her face with her hands.
Riley waited for her to stop, but she didn’t. She moaned gently into her fingers, shaking her head, and he watched her, as if his mind were on a shelf, while his body against him, still wanted to laugh. The more he listened to Nancy’s grief, the longer he observed her covered face, the more he seemed to become separate from himself. He was retreating from this awful sight – he’d never seen her cry like this – but his lungs were ready to explode. Unable to stop himself, he began to laugh.
Nancy lowered her fingers. Impassively she watched him – as he had watched her. With a pink tissue she dabbed each cheek as if she were putting on her make-up.
Riley’s laughter wouldn’t end. Shuddering and out of control, his voice grew loud. He tried to stop it with a cough and a whistle, but it was no use. It was like being stripped down, and Nancy could see him for who he was. She didn’t storm out; she just kept crying and dabbing her cheeks, watching him like it was a sad film, a tragedy It turned into a sort of game: who was going to stop first, him or her? The thought allowed him to recover, because he didn’t want to win: he couldn’t bear to watch her any more. The hysteria was over. And yet…
Riley didn’t know what was happening. He touched his cheeks… they were wet, like a rock on the beach. Nancy rose as if someone had banged at the door. She came towards him, curious and frightened, while Riley backed away His tears kept spilling out. The muscles all over his face ached terribly and yet part of him felt nothing, because he was distant, like a balloon, bobbing against the kitchen ceiling. Then, as if punctured by exhaustion and a will to resist no more, he felt himself sinking: coming down to a distraught man with a wet, contorted face.
‘It’s not your fault,’ urged Nancy appalled. ‘You only left the cage open.
Sobbing with a sound just like his laughter, Riley yanked open the back door. Cold air bit his face. He was still falling, but more quickly.
‘I’m here,’ said Nancy softly at his shoulder. ‘I’m always here, Riley.’
At those words, he caught himself up. He felt weakened -dreadfully – by the realisation that he wanted to live like other men; that he’d had enough of the twisting, the breaching and the wrecking of everything that passed before him. He’d gone out of his way to smash whatever might break. Nancy was in the yard, at his side, and Riley saw her as he’d first seen her at Lawton’s long ago, at their bleak beginning. She was still the same old Nancy still dumpy still hungry.
A frost had fallen with a faint mist. The yard was crisp with tiny crystals. It was dark and Nancy’s pile of bricks glittered with rime. Closing his eyes, and through a growing headache, Riley thought of snow… fields and fields of fresh fallen snow, as it’s seen at night, practically glowing from the inside – not a leaf, not a flower, just snow That was his wife. He knew it. And with a savage certainty, he knew that he didn’t want to spoil what he’d seen, not with a single careless footprint. Stunned, Riley recognised that he… loved her.
He looked up to the misty night sky. There were no stars, just this ghostly breath off the Thames.
They were sitting at the kitchen table. Nancy had fished out Uncle Bertie’s poison and filled identical tumblers.
‘To Arnold,’ she said.
They clinked glasses and downed their drinks in one.
Nancy coughed, and Riley’s lips ignited. To the blotches of purple light, he said, ‘I’ve had enough.’
Nancy nodded and put the bottle back in the cupboard.
Because the poison was illegal, she always hid it, even though no one would ever come looking. That was Nancy all over. He said, ‘I’ve got a Christmas Fair coming up.’
‘Where?’
‘Wanstead.’ Riley conjured up those fields of snow spreading out before him as far as the eye could see – beyond the Weald and on to the South Downs. ‘I’ll do this last one.’ He could do it; he could take a first step, as long as Nancy knew nothing of what lay behind.
‘What do you mean?’ Nancy stood with hands on her hips. Her face still blotched from the tears.
‘I’m going to pack it in.’
‘What, the business?’
‘Yes.’ He could walk away and keep going. Every step would be new He need never turn around. Riley’s eyes glazed before a sort of darkness. He didn’t understand his own thoughts. This was the Major’s country.
‘You’ve had too much of Uncle Bertie’s poison,’ said Nancy She smiled, and was, to Riley very pretty. ‘Your sort never give up.